Outdoors

Main reason for hunt: putting meat in the freezer

Dave "Elkheart" Petersen settles into his September archery hunt. Petersen's love of hunting and the outdoors takes top priority in the field until late into the season. Then his priority shifts to meat harvest. (Courtesy of Dave Petersen)

As a 50-day a year elk hunter, Dave Petersen can afford to do things a little differently from the standard seasonal hunter.

For starters, he does almost all his hunting the hard way — on foot with a traditional bow and arrow. Then he grants himself the luxury of "last-week bulls," those run-of-the-mill 5x5 specimens he often encounters in the early stages of his hunt.

At that point, they're safe. But by the last week of the season, when pressure builds to fill the freezer, those bulls move up on the wanted list.

Or at least they would in a typical archery elk season. The 2013 season, which closed at the end of September, was a bit of a washout in Petersen's home hunting grounds near Durango. The rain arrived midway through the month-long hunt and didn't relent until the final week, drawing into question the strategy of passing up an early opportunity for the chance of stalking a better animal.

"I love to hunt, and killing kills the hunt," Petersen explained. "I run this balance of hunting as long as I can and not looking at a winter without meat. I get less picky as the hunt goes on."

Gathering meat, according to a new national survey measuring hunting participation among adult Americans, now scores as the single most important reason for hunting. More than one third of the hunters surveyed (35 percent) said the top reason they hunt is "for the meat," compared with 31 percent who said "for sport/recreation," 21 percent who answered "to be with family and friends" and 9 percent who said "to be close to nature." Only 1 percent hunted "for a trophy" last year.

Most elk hunters would gladly take a shot at this five-point bull. (Courtesy of Dave Petersen)

The study, conducted by Responsive Management of Harrisonburg, Va., in coordination with the American Sportfishing Association, Southwick Associates and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, showed a 13 percent increase in the importance of obtaining meat over a similar study from 2006, when "sport/recreation" was the dominant motivation cited by 33 percent of hunters.

According to Responsive Management, the motivational shift in favor of meat among American hunters can be traced to several factors, the most significant being the global recession beginning in 2008. Hunting and the hunting industry have been described as "recession-proof," leading analysts to surmise that "more Americans likely turned to hunting as a way of obtaining relatively inexpensive venison and other meat to put food on the family table" in the face of increasing financial pressures.

Other people, such as Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, clearly aren't feeling the same financial squeeze. Yet, his stated intention to start hunting for his own meat in a 2011 "Field & Stream" blog entry points to the growing "green" or "locavore" food movement among new hunters and those returning to the sport.

"Wild game meat can't get much more organic," Joe Lewandowski, public information officer for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, told the Durango Herald. "It's high in protein, low in fat, good for you, healthy meat. It just tastes great."

Another element of the meat-hunting emphasis is gender-related. The number of new or returning female hunters has increased since 2006, and female hunters seem significantly more likely to prioritize meat. Fifty-five percent of female hunters surveyed said meat was their most important reason for hunting, compared with 27 percent of men.

"I think the average guy is going out primarily to get meat, and if he can get meat with antlers on it, he's happy," Petersen said. "The number of guys that will pass up a sure shot on a meat animal in hopes that a trophy will show up later is minimal."

Not all kids who play baseball are uniformed with fancy script across their chests, traveling to $1,000 instructional camps and drilled how to properly hit the cut-off man. Some kids just play to play.